311 Panorama

First  viewed  :  Uncertain

As  with  World  in  Action , against  which  it  was  often  scheduled,  Panorama  appears  here  now  due  to  an  episode  that  I  clearly  recall  seeing.  Before  that  it  was  always  the  one  programme  - apart  from  the  cricket  coverage - that  my  dad  wanted  to  watch  and  so  its  powerful  theme  music  was  usually  the  cue  to  go  to  bed.

The  episode  in  question, on  14.11.77,  featured  a  35  minute  film  report,  introduced  by  the  venerable  news  reporter  Charles  Wheeler ,  about  organised  football  hooliganism  at  Millwall  FC  who  bafflingly  agreed  to  co-operate  with  the   programme.  The  Millwall  firm's  tripartite  structure  meant  you  started  off  as  a  school  boy  causing  bother  around  the  half  way  line  then  chose  whether  to  join  "Treatment"  a  bunch  of  goons  wearing  surgical  helmets  who  guarded  the  home  end  against  incursions  or  the  real  nutters  the  "F  Troop"  to  whom  the  football  was  clearly  incidental  to  looking  for  a  ruck. On  one  occasion  when  Millwall  went  to  Sunderland, the  F  Troop  chose  instead  to  go  to  Charlton  v  Tottenham  to  soften  up  the  Spurs  fans  for  their  visit  later  in  the  season.

All  the  cliches  of   reporting  on   the  subject  were  introduced  here  such  as  trying  to  fit  the  phenomenon  into  a  sociological  framework  and  the  obligatory  footage  of  an  avowed  hooligan  working  with  kids  in  his  day  job. We  all  know  that's  often  the  case  now  but  it  was  a  revelation  then. The  main  spokesman  for  Treatment  was  a  surely  untypical  teenager called  David  who  wore  glasses  and  looked  like  a  puff  of  wind  would  knock  him  down.

In  fairness  to  the  club  their  efforts  to  get  to  grips  with  the  hooligan  problem  were  given   appropriate  coverage. Then-manager  Gordon  Jago   made  the  prescient  suggestion  of  making  games  home  fans  only  nearly   a  decade  before  Luton  Town  tried  it  ( largely  as  a  result  of  Millwall  fans  wrecking  their  ground  during  a  cup tie  in  1985 ).

Panorama   remains  BBC 's  flagship   current  affairs  programme , still  going  strong  after  63  years  and  all  the  Beeb's  top  rank  political  journalists  have  cut  their  teeth  on  it  - Dimbleby, Vine, Day , Kennedy  etc.  Its  coups  are  too  numerous  to  list  but  I  guess  the  1995  interview  with  Princess  Diana   must  top  the  bill. For  me  it  didn't  do  her  any  favours ; the  "Queen  of  People's  Hearts"  line  in  particular  showed  a  lack  of  self-awareness  that  left  her  open  to  ridicule.